Apartments Hard To Find In Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — When Joe Depto, a young professional writer, moved to Pittsburgh from Columbus, he found it easier to find a job than an apartment.

Over three months he looked everywhere to find the right place at the right price.

“It took some time and that was very frustrating,” Depto said.

Nick Matt is a local expert on Pittsburgh’s apartment rental scene and he says Depto is not alone. The rental market is tight for three reasons.

Home loans hard to get for home buyers, there are more renters from Marcellus Shale industry and there are fewer new apartment buildings because of the high cost to build.

“We’ve been at 100 percent occupied for about two and a half months now, so we’re pretty good,” Shawn Gossman with Morgan at North Shore, said. “There’s always one or two units available, but we’ve been pretty full so far.”

With 232 units, Morgan at North Shore is like many apartment complexes with not much availability.

One of the downsides of living in a market where 97 percent of the apartments are rented is that it does put pressure on the rents themselves. In the first quarter of 2011, rents rose four percent.

It’s about $800 to up to a few thousand dollars a month just to rent an apartment in Pittsburgh.

That price makes a lot of people cringe.

With the market so tight and available apartment units harder and harder to find, you will need to take more time to find that apartment that’s just right for you.